French 2017 presidential election

During the weekend, three important news regarding the French presidential election:

- Prime Minister Manuel Valls will probably decide to run in the primary election of the so-called Socialist Party and its satellites, even if President Hollande decides to run too.- The French Communist Party has voted to support leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his La France insoumise movement, thus disavowing the decision of the last Congress.- François Fillon, Sarkozy's Prime Minister, will represent the conservative right. Fillon is a big fan of Thatcher and a friend of Putin.

"Fishing is part of agriculture" Gred"Loz, you are like me" Yami"I am one of the better read Marxists on this site" Gred

Fellow comrades, particularly those from France: could someone please provide me with a couple articles discussing Le Pen's 'neofascist' essence -and preferably from some leftist, non-mainstream sources please)? I mean I've seen all the stuff about her party's social conservatism, and allegations of antisemitism, but at the same time she seems to have the more progressive position on topics like Syria and Libya compared to both conservative (Sarkozy) and pseudo-left (Hollande) opponents. Any help would be appreciated.

"The thing about capitalism is that it sounds awful on paper and is horrendous in practice. Communism sounds wonderful on paper and when it was put into practice it was done pretty well for what they had to work with." -MiG

Simply put: she leads a middle-class populist movement, with a narrative of pressures from above (EU/(((bankers)))/the two major parties) and below (immigrants/Muslims/"agitators"). That's one of the two key defining characteristics and enough for her to be labeled proto-fascistic. She skirts the line of suspension of liberal democracy from a distinctly undemocratic direction, with numerous statements questioning its efficacy; this is the other, and thus at best she's on the line between protofascism and full-on fascism. I would not say she's in the same full-force league as say, Jobbik which is essentially full-on resurrected Arrow Cross or a group like Golden Dawn, but her party are the proud heirs of Vichy France.

Jobbik, by the way, are the most pro-Russian of any Hungarian party; even more than Fidesz. This goes to show that anti-NATO foreign policy views have no real relation one way or another to whether a party is fascist, and expecting bourgeois nation-state Russia to be treated by the fascists of today as the Marxist supranational body USSR was is foolhardy. If anything, those from countries already in the NATO fold (e.g. not Svoboda) are more likely to be anti-NATO on foreign policy, as seen in FN/Jobbik/Golden Dawn. Because the bulk of the Western haute-bourgeoisie whose interests NATO serves opposes these middle-class far-right populist movements and actively inhibits them on the domestic front, meanwhile Russia is seen as a bulwark of whiteness and strength against "liberal decadence."

Therefore the French National front can be called "fascist", even though Marine Le Pen has opposed her father on many matters such as antisemitism. Marine Le Pen's strategy is to build a new neofascist "republican" strategy with a public endorsement of republican values such as the separation of the Church and the State, and also a state-oriented economic policy opposed to their former petty-bourgeois free market policies.

If you can read French, one of the best sources of informations on the true nature of the National Front (and the French far right in general) is this blog:

Regarding Syria, it's totally true that the FN is supportive of Russia and Mr. Assad. However, and although that can be considered to be in our interest to some extent, I wouldn't call that "progressive", as Mr. Putin is certainly not progressive. Russia is still an imperialist country, and Bachar is not our best friend either. It's well-known that the Front National is funded by Russia through some bank loans, and so they also supported Russia in the Ukrainian crisis even if this meant that they had to oppose their Ukrainian Neonazi brothers.

It's obvious that Russia tries to destabilize France by supporting the far right. For example if you have alook at some recent articles from RT France, you will see that many focus on Robert Ménard:

Marine Le Pen's strategy is to build a new neofascist "republican" strategy with a public endorsement of republican values such as the separation of the Church and the State, and also a state-oriented economic policy opposed to their former petty-bourgeois free market policies.

See that's very intriguing to me. Is it still neo-fascism if it's a shift so far away from so much of what defined her father's FN? Or is it all just a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' trick to get voters, do you think? I mean Mélenchon is one thing (he seems like a great guy). But when you compare Marine Le Pen to Hamon (piece of shit, same as Hollande), or Macron (ex-socialist, former Rothschild banker), isn't she the best of a rotten bunch?

Obviously, I'm not as exposed to French politics on a daily basis; what I hear is mostly what's reported by the mainstream Western or Russian news (i.e. not much). But to me a very important issue is a politician's stance on foreign interventionism. I mean how can someone - Hollande for example, claim to be trying to build some kind of social democracy at home if his diplomats and war planners are scheming to take out governments like in Syria?

"The thing about capitalism is that it sounds awful on paper and is horrendous in practice. Communism sounds wonderful on paper and when it was put into practice it was done pretty well for what they had to work with." -MiG